


Everyone Telling You "Be of Good Cheer"

by LayALioness



Series: 12 Days of Bellarke! [8]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-05 22:47:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5393120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh,” the girl says, quiet and surprised, rocking back on her heels. “Bellamy.”</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>“You are Bellamy, right?” She worries her lip a little, like she’s embarrassed. “It’s fine if you don’t remember, but—you used to tutor me? Honors History. I was like, twelve.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Telling You "Be of Good Cheer"

**Author's Note:**

> title from The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Bellamy has worked at Lexa’s bookstore for two years now, and they have a system for pretty much everything—including professional things, like shelving books and updating the computers, and less professional things, like switching between soccer and tennis every five minutes so they can each keep up with their respective games, and hitting on the customers.

They probably shouldn’t, and Bellamy made a point not to for his first few weeks there, but Lexa always did, and it was her store, so. Eventually he just realized she didn’t give a shit about much of anything.

So when the cute blonde walks in on Saturday morning, and Bellamy sees her first, he knocks his fist against the counter, so Lexa will look up.

“Dibs,” he mouths, putting a finger to his nose, and Lexa rolls her eyes a little, like she doesn’t care. But she’s still checking the girl out from over her glasses, so he’s feeling a little smug about it. Lexa _always_ calls dibs first.

“Hi,” he says, bright and smiling, and the blonde turns from where she’d been eyeing some Robert Frost, looking startled.

There’s a smudge of what looks like purple paint high up on her cheek, and her hands are covered in streaks of it, and white and red and yellow. It’s not that surprising; there are a lot of artist types downtown. She’s probably searching for a how-to guide for collaging or something.

“Can I help you?”

The girl squints at him a little, which would be disconcerting if he wasn’t so used to it. There are a lot of strange people in general, downtown. Last summer, someone painted some Picasso-style blue breasts, three of them, with red exes for nipples, over their glass window. Lexa had to get the whole thing replaced, when the paint wouldn’t scrub off, and Bellamy’s still not convinced she didn’t use the shards of the last pane to murder the artist.

“Oh,” the girl says, quiet and surprised, rocking back on her heels. “Bellamy.”

Now it’s his turn to squint. “I’m sorry?”

“You are Bellamy, right?” She worries her lip a little, like she’s embarrassed. “It’s fine if you don’t remember, but—you used to tutor me? Honors History. I was like, twelve.”

“Holy shit, Clarke Griffin,” Bellamy blurts, and she beams up at him, clearly pleased he remembers. He’s not sure how she could think he’d _forget_ ; her dad used to pay him in hundred dollar bills. It was, hands down, the best job he’s ever had, including the bookstore, and he _loves_ the bookstore. Lexa never makes him work overtime, and she always takes his side when a customer complains. It probably helps that he lets her hang out at his place whenever she doesn’t feel like taking the train home, too.

“Blake,” Lexa barks, as if she somehow heard him thinking about her, and realized she was being summoned. “Are you going to help the customer, or not?”

Clarke smirks a little, which just feels very unfair. The last time he saw her, she was tiny and gangly in all the wrong ways, like she didn’t really know how to be in her own skin. She had braces, too, and was embarrassed about them, so she’d try not to smile, or speak with her mouth wide. It always felt like an accomplishment, getting her to laugh, and he always managed to.

And now she’s twenty-something, gorgeous in a pair of loose jeans with more holes than material, and a sheer top, with one of those bra things that aren’t _really_ bras, underneath, in pale pink. Her boobs are fucking _insane_ , and he’s having a hard time not looking at them because they’re right there, but—this is _Clarke_ , and he should probably feel a lot more fraternal than he does, right now.

“Uh,” he falters a little, and she gives a fond smile, which somehow makes it _worse_. “Clarke, this is Lexa. My coworker.”

“His boss,” Lexa corrects automatically, because she’s a dick. He glares at her and she smirks.

“My _sort of boss_ ,” he grumbles, and Clarke grins.

“Awesome. I’m Clarke—I grew up with Bellamy, kind of,” she adds, and his stomach drops a little, because they _did_ grow up together, in a roundabout way; they were part of the same community for their formative years. And she’s leaning in to nudge his shoulder, friendly, like she might do to a sibling, and.

He’s fucked, basically. He played the big brother when he was seventeen, and ten years later, he’s still stuck in that role.

It could be worse, though. At least now he knows what to do.

“Yeah, the last time I saw you, you thought boys had cooties,” he teases, swinging an arm around her, loose and easy. She leans in immediately, and it’s like she never left.

“No, I thought boys _and_ girls had cooties,” she says, mild. “And I still do—but now I know I like them.”

She’s grinning a little wickedly, so Bellamy looks away. “What are you doing in the city?”

“I just moved here, actually. I have a job at the Poe house.”

“Painting it?” he guesses, glancing down at her hands, and she goes a little pink. Lexa’s still at the front counter, still pretending not to eavesdrop, so he shoots her a look and leads Clarke over to the little reading nook, with plush loveseats for the customers.

“The signs and stuff,” she shrugs, sitting down beside him, even though there are two other chairs. He tries not to grin too stupidly, it’s just—she’s so familiar, but new at the same time. Like he’s getting to learn her all over again. “And sometimes they let me give tours in the mornings, when I’m not all,” she gives a vague gesture to her paint stained jeans, and he smiles.

“Their loss,” he says. “Cute, Messy Artist is totally in, right now.”

Clarke grins down at her hands, soft. “Totally.”

“You should call Octavia,” he suggests, and she laughs a little.

“Of _course_ you guys ended up in the same place,” she shakes her head, but takes his phone so she can get his sister’s number. And if she puts his in her phone too, well. He won’t argue.

“I want the record to show that I moved here first.”

“Sure you did, Bell,” Clarke chirps, passing his phone back. “Like you wouldn’t follow your sister across the country if you had to.”

“Well, yeah,” he admits, throat a little rough, because with the way she’s sitting he can see straight down her shirt. Not that he _looks_ , but. It’s hard, knowing that it’s there at all. “But I never had to, so.”

He can’t just sit on the couch, playing catch up with Clarke forever, obviously. Lexa’s a cool boss but she’s not _that_ cool. So eventually they stand, and he goes back to work while she finally buys the book she came in for in the first place—some kid’s book, with no words, and a bunch of pictures of frogs floating around on lily pads—and then promises to get in touch with Octavia, before leaving.

She stretches up on her toes and leans across the counter, to peck him on the cheek, saying “Bye, Bell,” and he knows he looks ridiculous.

He’s even more convinced, when he turns to find Lexa smirking at him like she’s just won the biggest lottery of all time, and is about to rub his nose in it.

“Is she the reason you don’t date anyone?” she asks, which is a little bit strange. He and Lexa don’t really talk about their love lives, on principle. In fact, Bellamy tries to never befriend anyone who might want to talk about their love lives together. He already has enough of that, with Octavia.

“I date,” he says, petulant, but Lexa has the best stare-down of all time, second only to Octavia, which is why he doesn’t break. “I dated Echo,” he points out, because he know she’ll make a face. Echo is Lexa’s cousin, who he hooked up with when she took him as her plus one to her ex-fiancée’s wedding. It was a nightmare, basically, and they got drunk on a bunch of champagne before Lexa left with one of the bridesmaids, and Bellamy left with Echo.

“ _Three_ dates, if they could be called that,” Lexa sniffs, and he grins. She’s sort of a prude, he’s discovered.

“We ate dinner first,” he points out. “Anyway, I date plenty. Why are you suddenly concerned about my love life? Are you upset you didn’t get to hit on her?”

“I still might,” she muses, and he falters a little. “She did say she liked boys _and_ girls. Was quite clear about it, really.”

Most of what Bellamy wants to say are different variants of _please don’t_ , but Lexa would just use that against him, so instead he shrugs. “I’ll see if I can get you her number.”

Lexa clicks her tongue with an eye roll to end all eye rolls. Honestly, if she and his sister actually got along, he’d be afraid for the rest of the world. “You’re an idiot, Blake,” she sighs, dramatic, but it’s not the first time.

“Yeah,” he agrees, because it’s probably true, and then he goes to restock the cheap romance section. He has a list of recommendations for Lincoln that he adds three or four to with each shipment; his sister’s boyfriend likes to collect them, and leave them in the bathroom, or on the table next to their bed, to flip through.

Clarke does call Octavia, as promised, and so when he drags Miller to his sister’s next game night, Clarke’s already sitting on the couch. She looks a little uncomfortable, the uncertainty that comes with being at a party with people she only sort of knows, like she isn’t sure where she fits in, yet.

But then she glances over when the door opens, and catches sight of him, and beams, relieved and glad to see him. It probably shouldn’t make him as happy as it does, and he _definitely_ shouldn’t grin back as brightly, but. He’s a lost cause by this point, and he knows it.

Bellamy doesn’t do crushes, just as a personal preference, because when he _does_ like a girl, he goes all-in, and it takes months for him to recover. But now he’s seen Clarke twice, just barely, and he’s already trying to figure out how to make their schedules line up, or convince O to invite her to more group things, just so he’ll have an excuse to be around her.

He can feel Miller staring at the back of his head and pointedly ignores him, heading over to sit beside Clarke on the couch.

“I’ve been told you’re unmatched in some game of scrabble that’s been going on for years,” she says, leaning in, conspiratorial. Her breath smells like the wintergreen icebreakers, and he very much wants to lick the taste from her mouth.

“You should be careful,” he warns. “I’m sort of a board game badass.”

Clarke’s eyes gleam a little, at the challenge. “I think I can take you.”

He scoffs; the scrabble game is three years running, and he’s still up at least five hundred and seventy-five points. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg—Balderdash is his real specialty, but everyone else just refuses to play.

“I brought Cranium,” Clarke says, like a threat, but she’s still grinning around the edges, like she can’t really help it. “That is, if you’re up for a _real_ challenge.”

“Oh, you’re on,” Bellamy decides, and they shake on it.

He loses, of course. They make the mistake of letting Lincoln and Clarke be on the same team, which means that whenever the molding clay comes up, Bellamy’s team’s looks like a wet purple potato, while Clarke’s looks magnificent. He gets a leg up on the history trivia, but she knows a fair amount of those answers too, and Lincoln took a few Renaissance courses at art school. Miller, who’s usually Bellamy’s secret weapon, seems more interested in whatever weird flirting thing he has going on with Monty, through pop trivia questions, which Monty almost always wins. He reads a lot of _People_ Magazine.

But Octavia’s game nights always pretty quickly dissolve into _get drunk and watch Jeopardy!_ nights, so they just pack things up when Clarke and Bellamy start throwing bits of the clay at each other, and Octavia threatens to kick everyone out when one lands down her shirt.

She still ends up kicking everyone out, because Clarke and Bellamy keep trying to shout the answers out over each other, and then shit talk Alex Trebek whenever they’re wrong.

“Tonight was fun,” Clarke says, grinning, as he walks her home—she only lives four blocks from his apartment, so what? He’s just being a good friend, playing the good big brother, like she wants. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“O invited you,” Bellamy shrugs, and she pokes him.

“It’s cool you have such a big group,” she says, thoughtful, and she must realize how strange it sounds, because she adds “I love my best friends, don’t get me wrong, but. They’re _married_ , and we live together, and I just always feel like a third wheel.”

She makes a face, and she’s still a little drunk from Lincoln’s impressive stash of wine coolers, so she’s holding onto his arm with both hands.

“Yeah, this way if I’m pissed at Miller, I can just hang out with O,” he agrees. “And if I’m pissed at both of them, I can just hang out with Lexa.”

“She’s pretty,” Clarke says, thoughtful, and Bellamy tries not to frown.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I told her I’d get her your number.”

Clarke eyes him, amused. “Are you like the phone number middle man or something?”

“I prefer phone mediator,” he says, serious. “But yes.”

“I probably shouldn’t date your boss,” she hums, and he forces his voice to stay light.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to get fired,” she says, and it’s cute, how concerned she is. “Also, the bookstore’s really cool! I don’t want to lose it.”

“It’s a store,” he says, fond. “You can’t lose it.”

“Still,” Clarke says, turning to face him outside her apartment. It’s November and chilly, and she’s in a shirt with three-quarter sleeves. Honestly, he’s not sure how she isn’t freezing. “Better safe than sorry,” she grins, and leans up to peck him on the cheek. She misses, and grazes his jawline instead, but doesn’t seem to notice. “Night, Bellamy.”

“Goodnight, Clarke.”

She shows up at the bookstore again the next day, sketchpad in hand, during her lunch hour, and they hang out while she doodles a bunch of ravens flying around his head. Lexa’s still sending him knowing looks the whole time, but he can’t really blame her—if he looks half as gone as he feels, he probably looks like a puppy. One of those scruffy ones at the shelter, with like, a missing eye or something.

It doesn’t help that everyone else seems to like Clarke too; they invite her to movie nights and game nights and cookouts held on O and Lincoln’s balcony, because his sister refuses to be bullied by the weather. And sometimes Clarke brings her married friends, Wells and Raven, although usually they just stay in, doing whatever it is married people do. Sex, probably. Maybe crosswords. And from what he’s gathered, Raven has some sort of hobby that involves hand-building bombs. Not, like, live ones. At least, not according to Clarke.

It gets to the point where he sees her every day, either at work, or O’s house, or the bar they like to visit because it has a pool table and cheap drinks. Sometimes he’ll swing by the Poe House, if she didn’t go to his store for lunch, and he’ll bring a bagel or something from the vendors, because he knows she probably just got carried away painting the gingerbread cutouts on the wrap-around porch.

Octavia lets go of her party hosting reigns long enough for them all to have Thanksgiving dinner at Clarke's apartment. Officially, it's being hosted by Raven and Wells, since it's their first official Thanksgiving dinner as a married couple. They go a little bit nuts with the pies, so that by the end of the night, Bellamy's helping Wells try to fit  _seven_ different plates in the fridge, while Raven and Clarke try a mixture of bribing and guilt, to make the others take some home. 

He collapses beside her on the couch, after everyone else has left, and they're too far into their food comas to really speak, but she lays her head on his shoulder and he slides her half into his lap, so he can stretch out his legs, and they fall asleep wrapped up together.

It's dangerous, he knows, getting so tangled up in her, but--he can't really help it, and it's already too late. There's no stopping it, now. He'll just have to wait it out, until she inevitably starts to date someone, or moves away, or something. He honestly can't even imagine getting over her before then, and on the one hand it sucks, because he  _wants_ her, so fucking badly, like he's never wanted anything before in his life.

But on the other hand, it's Clarke, and he loves her, and he loves having her in his life, even if it's nothing more than trash talking each other on game nights, when they don't team up to decimate the rest.

Bellamy still has Lexa at least, as the one facet of his life untouched by Clarke Griffin—or at least, he thinks he does, until they both show up drunk at his apartment at four in the morning on Christmas Eve, after Lexa took Clarke out to the femdom dance club her friend runs, across town.

“The train’s stopped running,” she explains with a glare. Lexa is the angriest drunk he’s ever known, except instead of getting mad at things or people, like O does, she gets pissed at philosophy and forces of nature. She once went on a twenty minute rampage about gravity, before passing out on his floor. It was the best.

“We’ll sleep on the couch,” Clarke promises, giggling, because Clarke basically turns into a cat when she drinks—affectionate and ready to pass out on any available surface. “So you don’t hurt your old man back.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Bellamy grumbles. “Lexa can have the couch, you can have my bed, and I’ll sleep in the easy chair or something. It’s an over-expensive Lay-Z Boy, so don’t worry. It’s really comfortable. Miller bought it with his stripper money.”

“Fuck you, Blake,” Miller calls, grumpy and half-asleep, from his bedroom. Miller occasionally books bachelorette parties, or strips for ladies night at the local club. Not because he needs the money or anything, he just likes stripping.

Clarke giggles again, and tugs on his hand, impatient, stumbling down the hall. It’s endearing, watching her try to lead him to _his_ room, even though she’s never even been here, before. She keeps almost running into the walls.

Lexa, meanwhile, has managed to fall face first over the back of the couch, so she’s bent over at the most awkward angle imaginable, like a caterpillar caught mid-stretch. But she’s out like a light, so she must have had whiskey. Whiskey always puts her to sleep; she says her mom used to put it in her bottle when she was a baby, which is why her liver is made out of steel.

Bellamy tosses a pair of his sweatpants and an old Boy’s and Girl’s Club t-shirt at Clarke, for her to sleep in, since the dress she’s in doesn’t look very comfortable. It’s pretty, nothing like what he’d normally see at a dance club, with a flowery skirt that poofs out and swirls when she moves, so he can see the flash of pale blue of her underwear.

“I’ll just,” he waves towards the door and goes to leave, feeling awkward all of a sudden, but Clarke almost falls, trying to catch at his shirt.

“Don’t be dumb,” she says, making a face. “Your bed is big. We can share.” She paws at the zipper of her dress a few times before huffing, frustrated. “Besides—I can’t get it.”

This crosses so many different lines, he knows, but he also doesn’t actually _like_ the idea of sleeping in the easy chair. His legs always cramp. And it’s not like he’s going to _do_ anything with her—even if she was interested, which she’s not, she’s drunk, and that’s never been Bellamy’s style.

So he just carefully unzips her dress, and helps her step out of it, pointedly looking away while she shrugs on his shirt, and then he has to help her into the pants, rolling up the bottoms to cuff at her ankles. She’s swamped in cotton, and comfortable looking, dragging him towards the bed.

She doesn’t try to drunkenly seduce him or anything, although that would have been hilarious. She’d probably just flail around his dick a lot and then fall asleep on his crotch.

Instead, she just hums a little, snuggling in until she’s curled right up against him in a tight little ball. He only hesitates a little before tossing an arm around her—if she doesn’t want him to, she can shrug it off. But instead she tugs it tighter, giving a tiny sigh before her breathing starts to even.

Bellamy wakes up sometime just before noon, with sleep still crusted in his eyelashes, and something warm pressed up against him, fitted like a mold.

There’s also a bunch of hair in his mouth, which he spits out as quietly as possible, and then tries to roll over without jostling her too much, because his left leg has fallen asleep.

But when he turns, he finds Clarke already watching him, blinking sleepily, letting a slow smile spread over her face.

“Merry Christmas,” she says, quiet, glancing around the room, taking it all in. It’s the first time she’s seen it, and she looks like she’s studying everything he owns. Her eyes settle on his desk, where all his prototype cardstocks are sitting, and she grins. “Is that the Bellamy Blake card game I’ve heard about?”

“Gods Against Humanity,” he nods, embarrassed. He really hopes she doesn’t ask to see them—they’re so not close to finished. But there are a few cards he’s really proud of, that he wouldn’t mind showing off.

“Nerd,” she says, fond, reaching forward to flick his nose, soft enough he barely feels it. He catches her hand, and she watches as he folds their fingers together.

“I know why Lexa gets drunk every Christmas Eve,” he says, light. “Family issues—parents disowned her, fiancée dumped her around this time last year, fear of commitment—but what about you?”

“Maybe I just really like Jaeger shots,” Clarke shrugs, and he tugs on her arm a little until she relents. “My dad died a few years ago. Not on Christmas, but pretty close. And my mom’s on a cruise this year, with her boyfriend. She asked me first, if it was okay, but. What was I supposed to say? _No, I wanted to wallow in misery with you like we do every year_? I do want her to be happy.” She worries her lip a little. “I wasn’t going to come here last night, with Lexa. I know you like to spend the day with Octavia, but.”

Bellamy pokes her shin with his toes. “But?”

She sighs, huffing a laugh, and turning her face into his pillow, so her words are muffled. “But you make me happy. And I’m just—tired of being sad. It’s _Christmas_. I want to like Christmas, again.”

Bellamy snakes a hand up to curl around her neck, and waits for Clarke to poke her face back out, to look at him. She looks as fond as she always does, but she’s _nervous_ too, like she could possibly think he’s not in this, with her.

“I could help with that,” he offers, and she turns a little more, until she’s facing him straight-on, just inches from his face. “If you want.”

“Yeah?” she grins, and he moves his thumb to stroke her jaw. He can feel her throat work against his palm, like she’s having trouble swallowing.

“Yeah,” he says, low. Just for them. Miller’s probably left for his dad’s, by now, and Lexa always leaves around dawn, so they have the apartment to themselves. He’s never let himself be alone with Clarke before, not like this, not where it could be taken advantage of. “For what it’s worth, Clarke, you make me happy too.”

“Yeah?” her grin widens, and she goes pink all over, the blush spreading down beneath the neckline of his shirt. Bellamy very much wants to see where it ends up.

“Yeah—fuck, Clarke,” he swears as she presses up against him, rolling her hips along his thigh, and she sounds giddy with it. “You make me so fucking happy.”

“You never said anything.” She leans her face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in, while he combs his hands through her hair, unknotting all the tangles the way he used to do for Octavia when she got out of the bath.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and she huffs against his skin there, before pressing her lips against it, firm and sweet.

She pulls back, to look at him. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

Bellamy strokes a hand up the side of his shirt, along her ribs, flicking his thumb against her nipple so she jerks into his hand. “I thought you saw me like a brother.”

Clarke runs her eyes down him, taking her time on his stomach, where his shirt’s rucked up. “Trust me,” she breathes, getting her hands on him, and he rolls them over. “I’ve _never_ seen you like a brother.”

“So, what do you want to do first?” he asks, to be an asshole. He’s tracing his hand down her stomach now, purposefully slow, so she’s whining underneath him. “I was gonna bake some cookies for O’s party—we could do that.”

“Cookies,” Clarke echoes, incredulous, and he smirks.

“Cookies. They’re festive, and shit. It’ll make you feel good. Cookies make everything better.”

“I know something else that’ll make me feel good,” Clarke says, the last of it tapering into a moan as she grinds up against him, breathless with want.

“Yeah, okay,” he chokes out, dipping down to kiss her— _really_ kiss her, hot and wet and messy, just the way he knew it would be. She whines into his mouth, chasing it when he pulls away with a grin. “I like your idea better.”

“Of course you do,” Clarke snaps, impatient, and then looks impossibly shy. “Um, Bell, you know—you have to know this isn’t just like, a way for me to feel better, okay? It’s—I really fucking like you, and—”

Bellamy feels her melt back against him when he kisses her again, slower this time, feeling her out, tasting every inch the way he wanted to that first day at the bookstore. When he pulls back, he presses a kiss to the mole above her lip, just because he can.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, scrambling to get her undressed, even as she wrestles with his sleep shirt and the drawstring of his gym pants. “Tonight, we’re eating whatever fancy dinner Lincoln makes, and tomorrow I’m taking you out on a date.” He finally gets her shirt off, and she grins up at him, breathless, chest pink and heaving, and he can’t really stop himself from bending down to play with her breasts immediately. “But first, we’re working on making you like Christmas again.”

“It’s working,” she laughs, whimpering a little when he sucks a bruise against the column of her neck.

“I like it better, already.”


End file.
